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OPNsense pros and cons

Vendor: OPNsense

4.2 out of 5

40 reviews
97% willing to recommend

1,470 followers

Pros & Cons summary

OPNsense offers easy VPN setup and stands out for its extensive reporting features, security, and network management flexibility. Users appreciate its high availability and updates, though it faces integration issues with virtual servers and GitHub. Scalability is a concern, alongside the need for improved documentation, DNS blocking, and SSL inspection. Despite reliability limitations, OPNsense remains noteworthy for its firewall capabilities and user-friendly configuration.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

OPNsense provides an easy setup process, typically taking only 15-30 minutes to deploy.

The reporting and visibility features in OPNsense are highly valuable for users.

OPNsense has high stability and offers frequent updates, enhancing its reliability.

The VPN features in OPNsense, integrated with Radius and AAA for accounting and authentication, are particularly valuable.

OPNsense is open source, offering flexibility and a wide range of valuable features such as network checking, DNS-level filtering, and Dual WAN capabilities.

CONS

OPNsense shows problems with integration in different environments, particularly with virtual servers.

There are issues with stability and reliability in OPNsense, limiting its suitability for large-scale environments.

More technical documentation and improved support are needed for better ease of use.

OPNsense exhibits weaknesses in hardware updates, SSL inspection, and requires improved scalability.

Additional features like DNS blocking and enhancements in the reporting section are needed in OPNsense.

OPNsense Pros review quotes

Founder - Director (Technology Business) at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Apr 6, 2023

We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable.

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Cloud Architect at infotek-software GmbH

May 2, 2022

The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use.

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MK

Consultant at INCONSYS GmbH

Aug 28, 2019

The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed.

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OT/ICS Information Security Specialist at SANS

Jun 25, 2020

The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility.

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Network and Programming Specialist at Twentytwo Integration

Jun 11, 2024

The tool's integration is more like a button press.

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IT Security Director at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 20, 2023

The solution has high availability.

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HP

Hermann Potgieter

Senior Network Architect at Virtua Technologies

Jan 14, 2021

The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities.

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AB

Antonio EugenioBurriel

CIO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees

Jun 27, 2019

We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience.

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Akram Zaki Hussein

System and Network Administrator at El Sadat City Language School

Sep 22, 2023

The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners.

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TS

Associate consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 8, 2022

What I like best about OPNsense is that, as a firewall, it's pretty good. I'm quite impressed with it. I had an excellent experience with OPNsense, which helped me achieve the targets I wanted.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 40)

OPNsense Cons review quotes

Founder - Director (Technology Business) at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Apr 6, 2023

I think the most important thing is that it should be easily accessible, but currently, that doesn't seem to be the case. We need a hardware platform that's based on common standards and open computing principles, which would be like a commodity and benefit us greatly.

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Cloud Architect at infotek-software GmbH

May 2, 2022

We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much.

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OT/ICS Information Security Specialist at SANS

Jun 25, 2020

There are issues with stability and reliability.

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Free Report: OPNsense Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about OPNsense. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.

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Network and Programming Specialist at Twentytwo Integration

Jun 11, 2024

pfSense has better performance and quicker updates.

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IT Security Director at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 20, 2023

The reporting part could be better.

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HP

Hermann Potgieter

Senior Network Architect at Virtua Technologies

Jan 14, 2021

I would like to see better SD-WAN performance.

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AB

Antonio EugenioBurriel

CIO at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees

Jun 27, 2019

OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server.

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Akram Zaki Hussein

System and Network Administrator at El Sadat City Language School

Sep 22, 2023

Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine.

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TS

Associate consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 8, 2022

An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense.

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CA

Chirosca Alecsandru

Owner at Networks srl

Oct 13, 2020

The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 36)

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Fortinet FortiGate vs OPNsense

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